How I run an event business without a big team (and without handing it all to AI)

You do not need a big team to build a credible event business. After 20 years and more than 200 events, I run mine as a one-person operation, supported by freelancers and a tight tech stack. The trick is not replacing yourself with artificial intelligence; it is using the right tools to do more of what only you can do. Here is the exact tech stack I use across event planning, project management, marketing and learning, and how I think about the role of AI in all of it.

The myth of the big team

We look at how someone works and assume there must be a great big team behind them. A big creative team. A big marketing team. Then we assume we have to copy that to be taken seriously.

Earlier this year I went looking for a marketing company to build and run my strategy for me. The quote came back at $75,000 for a year. I am not bagging anyone for what they charge; their work has value. But for a one-person business, where I am the operator, the marketer, the owner and the person delivering the contracts, that $75,000 could have paid for an entire extra person who did marketing and a dozen other things I actually needed.

That moment made me ask a harder question, and I think every freelancer, business owner and practitioner should ask it too: are we delivering on our worth? Is there another way our clients could get what we do, faster or cheaper?

Your clients are already using AI

Here is the part too many people in events are still avoiding. Your clients are using AI. So if you are not, they are, and at some point they may decide that AI can do what you do, or simply think it can. Whether that is true or not, the outcome for you is the same.

So you need to keep playing, tinkering and actually working in this space, because that is how you work out where you are genuinely different from AI.

It is no longer about what you do. It is about how you do it. We can find out how to do almost anything online now. I have even built my own GPT, Shelby, who will walk you through planning an event based on my philosophy and everything I have learnt over the years. That is me selling the how, not just the what. There are plenty of books on event planning. I have a course on it. But fewer people want to sit down and work through a course; they want the answer quickly, and they can get it quickly. So the real question is this: what is it about you, and the way you do things, that is different?

Where AI actually fits

This is where AI earns its place. If we sit down and brainstorm what you want your event to look like, I can get a concept back to you within an hour. Images, a quote, a presentation, a pitch deck. I can record a short video walking you through it in my voice, with my face, so you get the feel for the idea without reading 100 pages, and it did not take me a week to pull together.

Yes, AI does some of that work. I use it for research, for finding suppliers I might not know, for pulling information into a pattern my client can actually follow. I use it to brainstorm images, design, colours, look and feel, and sometimes to draft copy. This very blog post started as me talking into my phone for 45 minutes on the drive to a workshop, then using AI to strip out the rambling and shape it into something worth reading, without losing a word of what I actually meant.

That is the point. AI is not taking people out of the equation. It is giving me time to work in spaces I never had time for before. Once, that 45-minute drive was radio, then music, then podcasts and courses. Now I can use it to actually produce something. So the question to sit with is: how can you use AI to improve what you deliver, so the outcome for the people you serve is genuinely better?

My one-person event business tech stack

Here is what I actually use, grouped by what it does.

AI tools

ChatGPT, Manus AI and Claude are my top three, and I pay for the pro version of each. More importantly, I also pay around $97 a month for a membership run by someone who stays across every AI development and teaches me how to use it. That subscription has paid for itself many times over, because it shows me quickly and simply what these tools can do.

Design: Canva

Canva is non-negotiable for me, and I will keep it forever. I was running a workshop back in 2024, demonstrating Canva AI, and I stopped to ask who had never heard of Canva. Half the room of professionals put their hand up. If you are not already in there, it is the first thing to play with. You can use it for posters, invitations, social graphics, even kids' birthday invitations and colouring-in sheets at home, so there is no excuse not to learn it.

Project management: monday.com

I run client projects in monday.com because it is the easiest tool for everyone involved, not just me. I give clients access rather than hiding my processes, tasks and checklists, because the thing I most want to remove for a client is the 2am panic of wondering whether something has been actioned. They can see the status of every task at any time, including the tasks that are theirs, not mine. I have used ClickUp too, and personally prefer parts of it, but it took too long to onboard clients, and ease of onboarding wins.

Documents: Microsoft Office and Google Workspace

I am on the Microsoft Office suite, mostly because I have used it since it launched and sometimes you stick with what you know. I also keep a professional Google Workspace, purely for the AI tools inside it; the speed at which you can build presentations, concepts and infographics in Google is genuinely impressive.

Accounting: Xero

Xero keeps me on track. I do not use it anywhere near its full capacity, but I can pull a profit and loss at any moment and see how I am tracking with each client, including quotes won versus quotes lost. It is an excellent business-tracking tool and not expensive.

Meetings and webinars: Zoom and Teams

I use Zoom to run webinars and online meetings. The deciding factor is always how easy a tool is for the people I am working with. I have tried others, but clients and guests are most comfortable on Zoom or Teams, so those are the two I stick with. A lot of the time it comes down to the organisation, not the individual.

Video: Descript

Descript is the one people get most excited about when I show them. It is a video editing tool that lets you edit through text, so you change the words and it changes the footage to match, and you can drop in new video too. If creating video content matters to you, I recommend it.

Social scheduling

For social media I usually schedule straight into the platform, or through Canva's content calendar, which lets me create and schedule from the same place. I also have SocialBee that I dip into now and then, though I tend to get lower engagement when I schedule through it.

The real lesson: a business is who you serve, not who you employ

The honest takeaway is this. I run a one-person business, and it took me a long time to make peace with that. For years I thought I needed employees to be taken seriously. Twenty years in, I have finally reconciled it: I run a business because I do business with people, and I get to choose who. That is what makes it a business, not the size of my payroll.

I do use freelancers and contractors regularly, and in this gig economy that is far more effective, bringing in specialised skills exactly where and when I need them. That model has served my business far better than trying to build and carry a permanent team.

So whether you are building a side hustle, going freelance, or running a small business in events, the team you imagine you need may be a tech stack and a good network of contractors instead. Build the stack, choose your people, and stay close enough to AI to know exactly where you are irreplaceable.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need a big team to run an event business?

No. A well-chosen tech stack plus a network of freelancers and contractors can deliver work to a high standard without permanent staff. The aim is to spend your time on what only you can do, and tool or outsource the rest.

Will AI replace event planners?

AI will not replace planners who know how they are different from it. It is excellent at research, drafting, design ideas and speeding up production, but the judgement, the relationships and the way you deliver remain yours. Use AI to enhance your output, not to hand over the parts that make you valuable.

What is the best tech stack for a one-person event business?

The stack I use covers AI (ChatGPT, Manus AI, Claude), design (Canva), project management (monday.com), documents (Microsoft Office and Google Workspace), accounting (Xero), meetings and webinars (Zoom and Teams), and video (Descript). Choose tools your clients also find easy to use, because adoption matters more than features.

How can event planners use AI without losing the personal touch?

Use AI for the time-consuming groundwork: research, first drafts, supplier discovery, image and design concepts. Then add your voice, your face and your judgement on top. Recording your own ideas and using AI only to tidy and structure them keeps the work unmistakably yours.

How much does it cost to run an event business solo?

Everyone is different but for me, far less than hiring a team. And compared to what it used to cost before tech tools came along (around $30K p/year just on an office and an accountant...) , most of the tools I use now are relatively low monthly subscriptions. And that compared with a $75,000 annual retainer or a full-time salary, a tool-and-freelancer model is a fraction of the cost for me.